Not reading the news
Social media are bad for ya
Some time ago I decided to stop using social media. I got so hooked up, to the sipeing slot machine, it consumed too much of my time. Step one was to disable all notifications. Interestingly enough everytime the app got updated those notifications were back on. Even if the phone didn’t chime in, I tended to open the app in times those in-between times, and I spent valuable minutes of my day swiping through. So I took more drastic actions and removed social media apps (not accounts just yet). I still occassionally open the web page versions, but that requires some effort (SIC!) to type in the address in the browser. Also I replaced one addiction with the other. Yes, good ‘ol news.
News are bad for ya
I remember the time before social media. You watched the news, or read the paper. Then electronical versions of those came along. I figured that news are good, or at least better than social media. You can learn something about the world. Right? Right?! Wrong!
Seems I was hooked to the same mechanism as social media. I answered myself a question:
How much do I remember after reading the news then next day?
Not that much. And is it meaningful? Does it enrich my life?
So I stopped.
I still have Youtube app installed and hacker news bookmark in my browser though. But I’m careful with those even if I find myself watching something informative like the excellent Stand-up Maths, or 3blue1brown. Edutainment is still a form of entertainment. Unless you dig deeper, research and repeat the video at least 3 times you wont’t remember much.